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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

I recently stumbled onto this bit of interesting news, not exactly fruitarian in nature, but certainly innovative and inspiring.. It's about a British guy, ex-pat, named Rishi Sowa, living in Mexico, off the coast of an island called "Las Mujeres". He's built himself a small tropical paradise from recycled materials, predominantly discarded plastic drinking bottles.

According to this youtube video, the claims are, that he is totally self sufficient on an island no bigger than the size of a tennis court.. Growing his own small vegetable garden with pawpaw, tomatoes, spinach, cocounuts, cucumbers etc..

It's not mentioned in the video, but my guess is it's highly likely he is fishing too.. .

His island is a work in progress, and grows steadily each day as he is forever in search of additional discarded bottles too expand his home. It uses alternative energy sources to power the small electrical devices he uses, and he's even designed his own washing machine that works solely on the constant wave motion around the island.

This is how his island currently looks:

It's difficult to imagine the work he must have put in getting it just to the stage it is at.. fetching sand from the beaches to create a more island looking base to his home, and growing mangroves along the edge to stop sand errosion.. Actually, that's one of the aspects that puzzles me most about this project, - how does he stop the sea constantly stealing back the sand from his beaches?..

His plan is to one day, when he feels the island is ready, to raise the anchors and push out into the ocean becoming his own independent country. Though it seems difficult for me to imagine that the island will ever be sturdy enough to withstand heavy seas, (apparently this is his 2nd attempt as the original island was destroyed by a hurricane!), from what he's managed to accomplish so far, provided the Mexicans don't commandeer his little makeshift paradise, my guess is it seems likely he will achieve his goal.

2
comments:

Hi Masood, yeah.. amazing really.. I think the soil he just brought in slowly bit by bit.. same as the sand.. but I guess it might grow by itself, with the addition of compost scraps and leaf mulch from the trees he has..

I asked the question about how the sand erosion on beaches is stopped: